CHICAGO -- Genetic testing of Iñupiat people currently living in Alaska's North Slope is helping Northwestern University scientists fill in the blanks on questions about the migration patterns and ancestral pool of the people who populated the North American Arctic over the last 5,000 years. "This is the first evidence that genetically ties all of the Iñupiat and Inuit populations from Alaska, Canada and Greenland back to the Alaskan North Slope," said Northwestern's M. Geoffrey Hayes, senior author of the new study to be published April 29, 2015, in the American ...

PULLMAN, Wash.--Climate change may be responsible for the abrupt collapse of civilization on the fringes of the Tibetan Plateau around 2000 B.C. WSU archaeologist Jade D'Alpoim Guedes and an international team of researchers found that cooling global temperatures at the end of the Holocene Climatic Optimum, a 4,000 year period of warm weather, would have made it impossible for ancient people on the Tibetan Plateau to cultivate millet, their primary food source. Guedes' team's research recently was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...

A vaccine containing a protein necessary for virus replication can boost an HIV-infected patient's immune system, according to clinical research published in the open access journal Retrovirology. This boost can result in increased effectiveness of antiretroviral drugs. When people are first diagnosed with HIV they are put on antiretroviral drugs, also known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). These drugs can stop the virus reproducing almost completely. When taking HAART, however, it is known that the virus can still replicate at low levels and accumulate ...

For patients in the early stage of non-small cell lung cancer, surgical resection yields optimal outcomes. Prior investigations have shown that different resection procedures have very different outcomes, with pneumonectomy associated with three-fold higher mortality than other resection types. While it is understandable that pathological and physiological factors influence a surgeon's choice of surgery for a particular patient, the results presented in this study suggest that physician discomfort with the operative complexities of a procedure may lead to selection of a ...

Hospital readmission rates after major thoracic surgery can run as high as 10-17%. Alarmingly, readmission after pulmonary resection for lung cancer has been associated with worse outcomes, including higher mortality. Thus, reducing readmissions after thoracic surgery can both save lives and reduce healthcare costs. Studies in internal medicine and cardiology have shown that programs that improve the transition from hospital to post-discharge care can be effective in decreasing emergency room visits and re-hospitalization. This study from McMaster University describes for ...

People suffering from the common lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), have an increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD), according to new research published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1]. When compared with people of the same age and sex who do not have the disease, those with COPD have a 34% increased risk of SCD overall, but their risk almost doubles more than five years after first being diagnosed with COPD. In COPD patients who have frequent exacerbations (sudden worsening of their symptoms, such as shortness ...

Marine ecosystems can be changed by night-time artificial lighting according to new research published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. The results indicate that light pollution from coastal communities, shipping and offshore infrastructure could be changing the composition of marine invertebrate communities. Researchers from the Universities of Exeter and Bangor used a raft in the Menai Strait to monitor how artificial light at night affects the settlement of marine invertebrates into new habitats. Light is an important cue which guides the larvae of marine ...

New research by scientists at New Zealand's University of Otago suggests a need for a fundamental rethink of the evolutionary path of enzymes, the proteins vital to all life on Earth. Enzymes catalyse a vast array of biologically relevant chemical reactions even in the simplest living cells. Biochemist Dr Wayne Patrick says that people tend to imagine evolution as a slow and steady march from barely functional life forms in the primordial soup, towards a modern-day pinnacle of near perfection. "When it comes to enzyme evolution, this is also the textbook version ...

MORE than two-thirds (69 per cent) of bowel cancer patients say they weren't advised to exercise regularly after their diagnosis - despite evidence that brisk physical activity is linked to better survival in bowel cancer, according to a Cancer Research UK study published today (Wednesday) in BMJ Open. The research, from the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL (University College London), is the largest study of its kind. More than 15,000 bowel cancer patients* were asked about their current level of physical activity and whether they were advised ...

The coalition government derailed a successful programme that reduced salt content added to foods by industry, argue experts in The BMJ this week. A poor diet is the leading cause of death and disability in the UK and worldwide. Large amounts of salt, for example, are added to food by industry and eating too much can raise blood pressure, a major factor associated with strokes, heart failure and heart attacks. The UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA), established in 2000, became a "world leader" in improving nutrition and pioneered a salt reduction programme by working ...

Calorie counts should be mandatory on all alcoholic drinks as a matter of urgency, argues a leading public health doctor in The BMJ this week. Fiona Sim, Chair of the Royal Society for Public Health, says alcoholic drinks contribute to obesity and the law "should require restaurant menus and labels to make energy content explicit in addition to alcohol content." She explains that, since 2011, packaged foods in the European Union have been subject to regulation requiring labelling with their ingredients and nutritional information, including energy content (calories). ...

Cocaine use causes 'profound changes' in the brain that lead to an increased risk of relapse due to stress - according to new research from the University of East Anglia. New research published today in The Journal of Neuroscience identifies a molecular mechanism in the reward centre of the brain that influences how recovering cocaine addicts might relapse after stressful events. Importantly, the study identifies a potential mechanism for protecting against such relapses with treatment. The research team looked at the effects of cocaine in rat brain cells (in vitro) ...

Women diagnosed with breast cancer who previously breastfed their babies had a 30 percent overall decreased risk of the disease recurring, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In addition, researchers found that the protective effect of breastfeeding was more pronounced for tumors of particular genetic subtypes, including the most commonly diagnosed of all breast cancers. The study involved 1,636 women with breast cancer who completed a questionnaire that included breastfeeding history. Additional medical ...

One life-threatening complication of lung cancer surgery is the formation of blood clots in the lungs (also called pulmonary embolism - PE) or in the legs (also known as deep vein thrombosis - DVT). Together, they would be defined as venous thromboembolic events (VTE). Several presentations at AATS 2015 shed new light on this serious problem. In the first prospective study of its kind, the incidence of VTE was found to be higher than previously reported, with a 5.4% VTE-specific mortality rate. Of concern to clinicians, most events were asymptomatic and occurred after patients ...

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, are significantly more likely to have an eating disorder -- a loss of control eating syndrome (LOC-ES) -- akin to binge eating, a condition more generally diagnosed only in adults, according to results of a new Johns Hopkins Children's Center study. The findings, reported ahead of print April 9 in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, suggest a common biological mechanism linking the two disorders, and the potential for developing treatment that works for both. Though many children with ADHD may ...

Current public health guidelines recommend that only gay men and people with HIV should be routinely screened for extragenital gonorrhea and chlamydia, given the high burden of these sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in this at-risk population. However, a new Johns Hopkins Medicine study that looked at over 10,000 people who attended an STI clinic in Baltimore has found that the occurrence of gonorrhea or chlamydia in extragenital areas like the throat or rectum is also significant in women, particularly younger women. The findings will be published in the May issue ...

RICHLAND, Wash. -- A year before Albert Einstein came up with the special theory of relativity, or E=mc2, physicists predicted the existence of something else: cyclotron radiation. Scientists predicted this radiation to be given off by electrons whirling around in a circle while trapped in a magnetic field. Over the last century, scientists have observed this radiation from large ensembles of electrons but never from individual ones. Until now. A group of almost 30 scientists and engineers from six research institutions reported the direct detection of cyclotron radiation ...

BATON ROUGE -- Using a novel, helicopter-borne sensor to penetrate below the surface of large swathes of terrain, a team of researchers supported by the National Science Foundation, or NSF, has gathered compelling evidence that beneath the Antarctica ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys lies a salty aquifer that may support previously unknown microbial ecosystems and retain evidence of ancient climate change. The team, which includes LSU hydrogeologist Peter Doran and researchers from the University of Tennessee; University of California-Santa Cruz; Dartmouth College; University ...

It was unprecedented developing a mission that could fly four identically equipped spacecraft in a tight formation and take measurements 100 times faster than any previous space mission -- an achievement enabled in part by four NASA-developed technologies that in some cases took nearly 10 years to mature. "To get to this point in time, we had to overcome a number of engineering challenges," said Brent Robertson, the deputy project manager of the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where hundreds of ...

Exposure to high levels of pollution can have a significant impact on fetal growth and development, that is the conclusion of research appearing today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The study found women who were pregnant during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when pollution levels were reduced by the Chinese government, gave birth to children with higher birth weights compared to those who were pregnant before and after the games. "The results of this study demonstrate a clear association between changes in air pollutant concentrations and birth weight," ...

Washington, D.C.-- Some scientists have suggested that global warming could melt frozen ground in the Arctic, releasing vast amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, greatly amplifying global warming. It has been proposed that such disastrous climate effects could be offset by technological approaches, broadly called geoengineering. One geoengineering proposal is to artificially whiten the surface of the Arctic Ocean in order to increase the reflection of the Sun's energy into space and restore sea ice in the area. New research from Carnegie's ...

Glenview, Ill., April 28, 2015--A study published on April 23 in the Online First section of the journal CHEST finds an elevated upper body position might improve respiratory safety in women early after childbirth without impairing sleep quality. Pregnancy-related maternal death occurs in 10 to 13 of 100,000 pregnancies and is attributable to anesthesia in 0.8 to 1.7 percent of the cases. A main cause of anesthesia-related maternal death is postpartum airway obstruction. "Women who sleep with their upper bodies propped up 45 degrees in the days following childbirth can ...

Washington, DC, April 28, 2015 - Rates of infection with the deadly superbug Clostridium difficile were highest in the Northeast region of the country and in the spring season over the last 10 years, according to a study published in the May issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). Researchers from the University of Texas retrospectively analyzed 2.3 million cases of C. difficile infection (CDI) from 2001-2010 and found the highest incidence in the Northeast ...

University of Washington research shows that using a single category of learning disability to qualify students with written language challenges for special education services is not scientifically supported. Some students only have writing disabilities, but some have both reading and writing disabilities. The study, published online in NeuroImage: Clinical, is among the first to identify structural white matter and functional gray matter differences in the brain between children with dyslexia and dysgraphia, and between those children and typical language learners. The ...

ANN ARBOR -- In certain types of cancer, nerves and cancer cells enter an often lethal and intricate waltz where cancer cells and nerves move toward one another and eventually engage in such a way that the cancer cells enter the nerves. The findings, appearing in Nature Communications, challenge conventional wisdom about perineural invasion, which holds that cancer cells are marauders that invade nerves through the path of least resistance, said Nisha D'Silva, principal investigator and professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. D'Silva's lab discovered ...